


i don’t want your heart

by ever_neutral



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 01:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/717539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ever_neutral/pseuds/ever_neutral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m over you, you know,” she’ll say, some years later, a bit in love with the way her voice doesn’t shake, not even a little.</p><p>[post-series]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don’t want your heart

“I’m over you, you know,” she’ll say, some years later, a bit in love with the way her voice doesn’t shake, not even a little.

It’ll be sometime around midnight and somewhere a bell will chime and signal the importance of the moment – this moment right now: neon lights from the overcrowded party will play across their faces in a sentimental way, maybe even a romantic way, and it’ll suit the sky full of stars above, a storybook setting for Something To Happen. If you’re into that sort of thing.

He might smirk a bit, a familiar twist of the mouth, altered just a little by years passed, by maturity and, just maybe, by the absence of her: there will be a warmth around the edges, quite removed from his adolescent coldness. “I know, Nips.”

She’ll lightly punch him on the shoulder, then, an admonishment for that old hated nickname; though there will be none of the old resentment, none at all, because after all this time her girlish insecurities will have dissipated as they should, as she always hoped they would. She’s less a fool than she’s used to be. She would like to believe so. She would like to believe in herself.

“So how’ve you been, really?” he’ll ask, more sincere than she’s ever seen him yet.

Her smile will be only slightly self-indulgent. “Really good.”

She’ll mean it, too. And she’ll tell him just how much, because after [however many] years apart he deserves to hear it – and she wants to let him in, reframe the way they relate to each other within a structure that makes sense to her, one that she can control. She will grant him the privilege of hearing about her graduating summa cum laude from York, about her studio apartment in London, about Alexandre the French architect boyfriend who’s proposing next week, or so his brother informs her – and how she is going to get everything she ever wanted, everything she used to talk about in third period while doodling their last names in love hearts in the back of her geometry notebook.

And not a word will be uttered about how she has never called, never written, never even given a thought to her old high school sweetheart, the one she once couldn’t imagine happiness without.

But nostalgia is the one true devil, after all. And standing there beneath the glare of an expectant moon, her adolescent hope reflected in his familiar eyes, she will feel it, feel herself dissolving, becoming something insubstantial, one laugh from simply floating away like so many pinkish bubbles in their champagne flutes. Maybe that’s the state of things, of this: maybe time changes nothing.

That’s when she’ll cut him off – in the middle of a story about meeting obnoxious in-laws, or something along those lines – and excuse herself for the bathroom. Once there she will stare long and hard at her immaculate reflection, at the person she is now; and when she comes out she will be immediately distracted by someone or other and then promptly pulled into an engrossing conversation – so engrossing that she completely forgets about _him_ still on the balcony, perhaps missing her. In this moment, she will be careless about his presence.

It won’t be until some time later that he seeks her out, under the starlight again.

(He seeks her out. This is important.)

By this point the party will be dwindling, people fleeing the late hour although it has been _such a lovely time_ and _must try to do it again_. Michelle should be joining them – she has a flight to catch at noon tomorrow – but for whatever reason she’s found herself back against the balustrade, cradling her fourth champagne and enjoying the first quiet, unfiltered moment all evening.

This is, of course, the moment he finds her.

“Social butterfly gone into hibernation?” And the careless lilt of his voice will remind her so much of _then_ that it’s chilling, the way these insignificant details strike her unawares; it’s almost as if everything’s doomed to never change at all.

“I’ll be off soon.” It’s the appropriate answer. There’s really no reason to stay.

He’ll nod, and not smile, and ask something about where she’s staying in a way that might be construed as detached if she weren’t so on-guard.

“Not really any of your business, is it,” she’ll say, without thinking, and take a quick swallow of champagne. And not look at him.

After a beat: “I was just – Never mind. Sorry.” Then, immediately contradicting himself: “D’you need help getting home?”

“Think I’ll manage, thanks,” she tells him in the same clipped tone, an irritating itch prickling beneath her skin – and she really knows she should be getting home now.

His next words are quieter. “Going back tomorrow?”

“Mhm,” is her noncommittal response.

“Me too. So…” he trails off.

She will never have known him to be so cautious, so unsure of his own words. “ _So_ , Tony?”

“Well. Probably won’t see each other for a long time, again.”

“No, suppose not,” she agrees, more interested in the horizon of city lights.

In her peripheral vision, he’s frowning. “Look, can we just cut the play-acting out, Nips. This aloof posturing is so not -- ” He gestures at her general person. “ – you.”

“Don’t call me Nips,” she’ll say, force of habit, still refuses to look at him. The next momentous words will come out a murmur, and in her half-drunkenness she will have no way to judge the conviction in them: “I’m not the girl you used to know, Tony.”

“I know you’re not,” he might say, surprising her. “I don’t want you to be.”

She’ll look at him then, really look at him, at his tense frame but open face – and it will be like looking into the eyes of a stranger. But probably not an unwelcome one. “Then what do you want, Tony?”

Perhaps here he’ll say nothing, but stare at her, his gaze unflinching; he may just look at her the way she once yearned to be looked at, back when she cared too much about being looked at, and it will be nothing like she envisioned: it will be terrifying.

She will be the one to make the first move, then: a single anticlimactic step back. “No, this can’t happen, Tony.”

His gaze might turn quizzical here, because despite the constant decay of the universe and the movement of subatomic particles at quasi-light-speed there are some things that don’t change, and Tony Stonem will never feel accustomed to rejection. It’ll be the sort of thing that strengthens her resolve even in spite of the natural law that he is even more beautiful when he frowns.

“I’m over you,” she will repeat, and hope. “It’s been years, Tony. I’m over us.”

The next moment will be the first and last thing for which she has ever been prepared. “I’m not,” he will say, quite simply, and ruin everything.


End file.
